POLICYFORUM2007, USAID had five Science and Technol-ogy Policy Fellows sponsored by the Ameri-can Association for the Advancement of Sci-ence; today, it has 54 fellows, including 11deployed overseas (7). USAID also institutedthe Grand Challenges program, which lever-ages outside funding to support domestic andinternational research on U.S. developmentpriorities, and the Development InnovationVentures fund, which provides seed capi-tal to high-risk, high-return development-friendly technologies (8, 9). The U.S. Depart-ment of Agriculture (USDA) participates inthe USAID-led Feed the Future initiative andsought to orient its funding priorities towardresearch that would yield compound benefitsfor U.S. agriculture and global food security(10). Although these programs involve mod-est funds, they are an important foundationfor future work.

Requirements for Scientific Exchange

In comparison with its progress on scientificdiplomacy and international development,the Obama Administration yet had only mod-est success in facilitating the collaborationsthat account for the majority of cooperationbetween U.S. scientists and their foreigncounterparts.Most international science is self-organiz-ing (11). Government-directed internationalresearch initiatives, such as ITER (formerlythe International Thermonuclear EnergyReactor) and the Human Genome Project, arerare. Most U.S. government agencies, suchas the National Science Foundation (NSF)and USDA, predominantly or exclusivelyfund U.S. researchers. Scientists pursue col-laborations, international or otherwise, toshare costs and access the best minds, equip-ment, and data. Improved information com-munication technologies and cheaper travelhave made these collaborations easier. Morethan a third of the research papers producedglobally now have coauthors from multiplecountries, twice the share in 1990 (12). Asemerging countries, such as China, dramati-cally increase their research and development(R&D) expenditures, international collabora-tions have become increasingly diverse geo-graphically (13).It is too soon to know whether these self-organizing international scientific collabo-rations have increased during the ObamaAdministration. The U.S. National Institutesof Health (NIH), NSF, and other U.S. govern-ment agencies that fund scientific researchdo not systematically track the internationalcollaborators of their domestic grantees. Co-authored publications are a lagging indicatorof international scientific cooperation, com-ing months or, more often, years after the col-laboration formed.

A Work in Progress

Four years after being elected, the ObamaAdministration’s initiative on internationalscientific collaboration remains a work inprogress. According to the Pew Global Atti-tudes Project, approval of the United Stateshas declined in Muslim-majority countriessince 2009, from 25 to 15%, with U.S. droneattacks and the unresolved Israeli-Palestin-ian conflict among the cited reasons (24).Meanwhile, admiration of U.S. scientific andtechnological prowess in these countries hasremained high (24). Building on the interna-tional respect for American science to cre-ate good will toward U.S. policies is smart.Investing in the immigration reforms, inter-national research, and capacity-building thatwould help ensure that the best scientificminds come together to address the biggestglobal challenges is even smarter. Both arelaudable goals for a future administration.References and Notes1. B. H. Obama, Remarks by the President on a New Begin-ning, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, 4 June 2009.2. B. H. Obama, Remarks by the President at the NationalAcademy of Sciences Annual Meeting, 27 April 2009.3. R. D. Hormats, Sci. Diplomacy no. 2 (March 2012).4. Office of the Spokesman, U.S. Department of State,Department of State Announces Two New Science Out-reach Platforms, 26 July 2012; www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/07/ 195525.htm.5. O. Levine, L. Garrett, The fallout from the CIA’s vaccina-tion ploy in Pakistan, Washington Post, 15 July 2011.6. R. Shah, remarks for Conference on science, technology,and innovation in development, USAID, Washington, DC,13 to 14 July 2010.7. R. Shah, Remarks by USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah atthe University of Michigan, 28 September 2012.